Barcelona -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- The world must act now to prevent a new digital caste system from emerging , Google 's executive chairman Eric Schmidt told the world 's largest mobile phone gathering in Barcelona , Spain .

In his keynote address at the Mobile World Congress , Schmidt said for the `` aspiring majority '' of five out of seven billion global citizens , `` the web is still a scarce resource . ''

`` The first future belongs to the early adopters , the lucky few . For this group the future offers only the limits of science and ethics , '' he said .

`` For most people the digital revolution has not arrived yet . Every revolution begins with a small group of people . Imagine how much better it would be with another five billion people online , '' he said .

Schmidt predicted that in the next decade there would be many improvements to connectivity ; but there is a limit to the amount of new infrastructure that would be laid by 2020 , he said .

`` Smartphones are part of the solution , but having a smartphone is not enough to get you online . ''

He suggested that isolated communities could share data in peer-to-peer or `` mesh networks , '' describing them as a `` digital watering hole . ''

Anyone with solar equipment can set up a network , he said . `` Even modest amounts of connectivity changes lives . ''

In this new world it will be easier for people to mobilize against dictators , as the uprisings in the Arab World had shown , he said .

Some governments would try to control access to the web and new technology , but he said he believed they were going to fail .

`` Citizens will demand a more ethical deal . There will still be elites , but technology is a leveler , and those with nothing will have something . ''

`` Everyone is blessed with creativity and imagination and the capacity for innovation . In every person there 's an even better company waiting to get out . Let us commit ourselves to building a world where everyone has a chance to be connected , '' he said .

In his 2010 keynote at the MWC , Schmidt proclaimed Google 's new strategy of `` putting mobile first . '' The following year he gave an update on the rise of Android and emphasized the importance of cloud computing to the future of new mobile services .

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Google 's Eric Schmidt says web `` still a scarce resource '' for majority of world 's citizens

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Schmidt : `` For most people the digital revolution has not arrived yet ''

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Isolated communities need peer-to-peer data-sharing networks , he says

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Schmidt : `` Technology is a leveler , and those with nothing will have something ''